Electronex

Electronex is the Australian Electronics Manufacturing industry annual expo. This year it is at the Melbourne Park Function Centre from Wednesday 6 to Thursday 7 September 2017. You can see all the details at Electronex.

Electronex 2017

SMCBA

In parallel the SMCBA (Surface Mount & Circuit Board Association) is running their annual conference. This year the primary sessions are:

The program has two internationally renowned presenters for SMT ManufacturingVern Solberg and Phil Zarrow presenting on the topics.

Vern Solberg

Phil Zarrow

And I’m presenting 2 of the open sessions which include a look at the role PCB Design takes in the overall Product Development and the 5 areas of cost you must manage if you want to minimise the total cost of a product.

PCB Design Tradeoffs

This topic looks at the Product Development process and how PCB design fits into that. This is to do with the trade offs between product features, what you do in HW, what you do in SW and how to select the technology you want to put on the PCB based on the combination of CEM or in house capability, component lead time, test requirements and product cost.

Total cost of product ownership

The total cost of ownership of a product is a concept that looks at all the investment required to bring a product to market and manage it throughout its life cycle. It isn’t just a case of minimising R&D spend or getting the Bill of Materials to a minimum. That will usually lead to a higher cost product.

What will be presented is a model looking at the 5 major costs areas involved in the development of a product throughout its life cycle and how taking all 5 into account can enable you to get the best return on the important investment made in bringing new products to market.

It will also examine a case study where a product development delivered a next generation product to market that allowed the manufacturer to lower their price, triple their profit margin and increase their market share, all at the same time.

Successful Endeavours Exhibiting

And we are also pleased to announce that we are exhibiting this year for the first time. So if you are coming then we are at stand C1 next to Duet Electronics.